That would explain a lot. Our 80’s high school physics teacher taught us that acceleration equals velocity squared, but he was prone to using vast over simplifications to get through the material quickly.

That's not a vast oversimplification, it's completely unrelated to reality

If that were true, you would have not been able to reach correct answers on any question involving acceleration, directly or indirectly. Which means much of mechanics.

Are you sure you just didn't misremember it?

Perhaps a perversion of their units? E.g. m/s^2 vs (m/s)^2